Press Box: Rutgers AD to meet with school officials

The Sports Xchange

The SportsXchange•June 4, 2013

Rutgers University announced Monday that newly-hired athletic director Julie Hermann will meet with school officials this week. The school postponed the on-campus meetings with Hermann last week without clarifying why. She is scheduled to start the job June 17. Hermann's hire caused controversy because of accusations that she mentally abused players when she was Tennessee's women's volleyball coach in the 1990s. She was also at the center of a 2008 sex discrimination lawsuit at Louisville, while she was a senior athletics administrator. Hermann was hired after former AD Tim Pernetti stepped down in the wake of a video showing then-men's basketball coach Mike Rice yelling gay slurs and hitting players during practice. Rice was fired after the video went public.

NHL ---The Chicago Blackhawks announced that they agreed to a one-year deal with goaltender Antti Raanta. Raanta, 24, went 21-10-11, including five shutouts, a 1.85 goals-against average and a .943 save percentage in 45 games last season with Assat Pori of SM-liiga in Finland.

---The Tampa Bay Lightning announced that they added Rick Bowness as associate coach as part of head coach Jon Cooper's staff. Bowness was with the Vancouver Canucks for the past seven years as an assistant and then associate coach.

GOLF ---The agent for Tiger Woods said the golfer is close to signing a new deal with Nike that would keep him the sport's highest-paid endorser. "We're down to the very, very short strokes right now ... I would expect we would come out with some sort of joint announcement when we get the paperwork signed," agent Mark Steinberg told ESPN. "I hope this is viewed as a pretty bold statement." Woods' 2006 contract with Nike expires at the end of this year, but the new deal could be signed in the next couple weeks by the start of the U.S. Open.

COLLEGE FOOTBALL ---The Big Ten announced that Maryland will host Penn State at Baltimore's M&T Bank Stadium on Oct. 24, 2015. M&T Bank Stadium is home to the Baltimore Ravens.

BOXING ---Boxing champion Floyd Mayweather is betting nearly $6 million on the Miami Heat to beat the Indians Pacers in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals Monday night, according to pregame.com. Mayweather has not confirmed the bet. The online handicapping service claims to have a source. "Good source from my #HeavyHitters Vegas crew alerted me that Floyd Mayweather has laid over $5,900,000 on Heat -7 tonight in Vegas," the website wrote on Twitter. Pregame.com uses the name Vegas Gambling Steam as its Twitter handle. It is a gambling website that displays odds, sports books and gambling advice.